Earthly Connection – Part 4

I finished off my Tingana adventure by working with a small town just outside of Tingana. There I got to finally see some organization in Perú and see a nursery operation in the works. Being in Tingana has brought up some strong emotions and I have also remembered my time in Huancayo. In Huancayo I got to see firsthand the realities of animals being sold and the selling of mass amount of fruits and vegetables in the market. It showed me the close connection the people of Perú have to the land they live in and Tingana got me closer to that reality. In Perú you are upfront and personal with the realities of the harvest, growing and slaughter of animals, fruits and vegetables. All of which are celebrated and rooted into the families that live in the rural area and passed down to the generations. In the coast of Perú there is a growing trend of disconnection to these values and I believe it is caused by the envy of the Western World one of which I live in.

When I lived in Windsor I had pretty good respect for nature and had very strong environmental views and choose a career path that would lead me to working with and within trees on a daily basis. When I was in school in Toronto I read a book called Fast Food Nation and it is a book I recommend to read. It described the effects McDonalds, Burger King and other fast food restaurants have created within our food industry. Then moving to Vancouver I was introduced to living with 20 people within two houses and have learned some much from every one of them. When you live with this many people you have to overcome many obstacles and learn to deal with conflict and emotions of others. Also I have made some very close friends from across the Atlantic Ocean in which they have attributed information of how people think and live within the Euro Zone. All this information has informed me and connected me to the food and nature around me and now I really get to experience it firsthand.

Huancayo and Moyobamba are two very different cultures in Perú and have very different ideals. There is a lot of tension between the Andean people and the people of the Amazon. Even though there is a division between the two there is a common element they share and that is food. In both areas animals, fruits and vegetables are respected and even celebrated because the people know that without them we do not survive. Just after I left Huancayo the valley that Huancayo is located in was about to have a festival to celebrate the animals that they care for and have the animals all dressed up. Unfortunately I left before I could attend the festivities but it made me really think about the animals that we eat in North America. Here the animals are roaming around in a free range even walking through the city centre. In Canada most of our animals are locked up in houses and barns made sure to stay in one place so their meat will be tender. I do not know if I can eat meat again going back to Canada because of the treatment of the animals. Our system of food seems to be to industrialized and it has become to produce for not the quality of the food or the benefits that come from the food, it is how much can be produced, how well the food will taste and how well it looks.

Not only in North America we have our animals locked up, we also feed the animals and inject the animals with steroids, chemicals and hormones to produce great yields and to “protect” the animals from disease. I do not think that we realize what these chemicals can do to us when they are passed down from the animals or what it is doing to the environment. I feel this is where we lose the connection to the food that we eat because we are deceived by all the advertisement take is drilled into us through the television and on the products. We make our products look good on the box and safe for children to look at but are they really good for us and our children. I believe we need to see the realities of how food is processed in North America so that we can start to respect and change our ways of how animals are treated. I think that a lot of the animal abuse that happens is connected with the problem of disconnection to animals and produce. We do not see animals as life forms but as food on our plate. Though we do not want to see the realities of how the animal is killed and processed because I think most people’s stomachs would turn. I really felt uncomfortable of seeing the animals slaughtered and the body parts lying around the market. I am not use to it and the energy of the place seemed very dark but to the people and children there it was just a regular day for them. I like to describe the feeling as the saying “We will eat the cow but we do not want to see how it is killed.”

I do like some dark humour now and again and since I have been thinking about the whole subject of disconnection between humans and animals I thought of a good example. I like people to observe and think about the next time you go to a petting zoo in a park. We have made farming into an entertainment resource for our children but yet very little education on the work involved. I find it actually hilarious that we bring our kids to these parks where they can play with the animals and pet them. Kids enjoy it so much and what makes the event so great is that after the kids are done playing with the animals they rush over to their tables hungry for that pig that they just played with or that cow that they were able sit on and go for a ride. Yet they have no clue what the processes are involved in the production of animal products for consumption.

I believe that if we start to reconnect to the Earth and life forms that live on this planet I think a lot of our problems will go away. We are too concerned in our lives about the artificial things then the real and tangible objects. We are also to stress too much about imperfections and making sure that everything fits into place. For the first two months in Perú I was very comfortable where I was sleeping, what service I was getting and quality of food I was getting. Then I arrived into to Moyobamba and Tingana and I have been put into very uncomfortable situations. The bed I have slept on is not the greatest, bugs are everywhere, dogs run lose and you are never sure if the food is good to eat or not (the food is fine to eat but as a traveler you can have problems because you have changed your diet or you do not know if they have boiled the water). After two weeks of this experience you start to become adapted to your environment and you do not worry anymore.

This experience has been great because when I go back to Canada I will eat any type of fruit giving to me. I am no longer going to look for the perfect fruit and the grocery store and going to buy more from the local farmers market. In Tingana I ate oranges that did not even look like your typical orange in the store. They were partly green and more yellowish orange but they tasted amazing and probably some of the best oranges I have ever had. Same with the lemons here in Moyobamba, one of my friends made lemonade and showed me the lemons used for the drink and they did not even look like lemons. As well the people here choice to eat fruit that have had bugs eating them because they know that the fruits were not affected by chemicals and it is natural.

After my experiences so far I believe that we have it way too good in North America and need to take a step back and reconnect with the Earth. On this journey I read a book called green collar economy and it was about bringing green jobs to the USA. One part of the book that really inspired me was the part about a program that brought criminals and addicts into backyard and rooftop gardens. This program inspired these people to change their ways of life because they would enjoy seeing their hard work start to grow and reconnected with them to the life other than their selves. I think that if everyone started this trend we would see a drop in crime and animal abuse. There is no point of locking people up in a cell for a bit and then throwing them back into society. We should be helping each other instead of fighting one another. We are in this world together and we are not alone. Perú’s problems are Canada’s problems along with the rest of the world. Our country does not stand alone we stand with every other country in this world and we need to start helping each other out and if we do that I think a lot of our economic problems, environmental problems, health problems and education problems would start to decrease. That is my rant for this trip and I hope that inspires some of you. There is nothing wrong with change because humans adapt so quickly to our environments. It only took me two weeks too where some species cannot last even a day. So why not make change today and reconnect with a friend or go out connect with nature, we are part of it and should see ourselves within the web of life and not apart from it.